Dr. Angela Guarda, MD

I’m changing my review from years ago. Although her program is hard and may not work for everyone, she herself is wicked smart and knows everything there is to know about eating disorders and more. I was a young teen as a patient of hers and did follow up with her and had a connection and always felt safe talking to her. I was close to death from Anorexia and didn’t recover for years but I believe I would have died if her program had not intervened in my life.

All of the negative reviews about Dr. Guarda are true. I can't believe she is still able to practice with so many patients reporting bad experiences with her. She is extremely cold and insensitive. If you are struggling or not following her suggestions, she is angry and rude. I don't understand why she wants to be in the helping field if she has no patience or tolerance for someone struggling. Dr. Guarda thinks she knows more about you than you know about yourself. As someone said before, she can't tell the difference between poor insight and poor motivation. I recently gave birth to my first child, which was the first time I was in the hospital since my time in Johns Hopkins. I honestly felt anxious being back in the hospital because all I could think about was my time in Hopkins. I was shocked that the doctors were actually nice and wanted to support me. Needless to say, the experience with Dr. Guarda was pretty traumatizing.

Dr. Guarda did not believe me about the symptoms of my eating disorder. Because of this, under her care, I was subjected to being put in solitary confinement as punishment for not finishing meals. Her treatment team and her would repeatedly blame me for my illness. They isolated me from my family by telling them not to visit me. Patients and staff were also not permitted to talk to me during this period of solitary confinement. On top of it, I was not allowed to even attend therapy groups while I stayed in solitary. ALL of this took place under Dr. Guarda's 'care'. I reached out to Hopkins to report this conduct and received a very dismissive response. I genuinely do not recommend, but if you're still considering, I HIGHLY recommend questioning Dr. Guarda about her approach to ARFID and EDs before committing to her treatment. If you do not fix into her box, be warned, you will be treated less than human. I am so sorry to see so many others have similar experiences as me.

Dr Guarda is an uncaring and non compassionate. She did help me gain weight but it wasn’t for the right reason. I didn't want to continue our appointments and didn’t feel comfortable talking to her. I have seen her for a year so far and I don’t feel that much better about my eating disorder. I just have gained a healthy amount of weight back. Every time I try to talk to her she shuts me down and makes me feel like I said something wrong or feel like I was just stuck. She doesn’t help me in any mental way and the only reason I still see her is because she is the only person available and takes my insurance.

I had a terrible experience with Dr. Guarda and her eating disorders program. Dr. Guarda is extremely rude, invalidating, and condescending. The only thing Dr. Guarda cares about is weight gain. Yes, weight gain can be necessary for recovery from an eating disorder, but the worst part is how horribly Dr. Guarda and her team go about this. They are not compassionate and they are incredibly rude unless you are following their treatment plan to a T. I would recommend going somewhere else where you are treated like a human and not just an eating disorder. In addition to Dr. Guarda being a mean person, the food in the program is terrible. They do not let you go to bed until at least 10 PM and you get woken up at 5:30 AM or 6 AM for weights... and the only time you can shower is after bed time, meaning I usually got 6 hours of sleep a night and was exhausted. Ugh. I just want to warn everyone about this program before anyone ever considers going.

Dr. Guarda became my doctor 3 years ago; she has saved my life. I have had a lifelong struggle with anorexia and did not make any progress toward recovery until I met her. I would highly recommend, anyone struggling with an eating disorder, to seek help from her.

I went through this program as an adult and it was nothing short of traumatizing. I left the program in much worse condition than I started. The person who wrote the recent favorable review was probably someone from their own program trying to boost the ratings. It sounds exactly like their team to blame everything on someone being ill. Who wouldn't want to go through days and weeks of having your rights taken away from you, eating terrible food, and sitting in one common room from 8 AM - 10 PM every day? You must obviously be a sick person if that doesn't sound fun to you. I was exhausted the entire time I was there because they barely give you any time to sleep, and just increase medications to cover up problems like anxiety and depression. There is no individual support. They call rounds with 10 random doctors, residents, and social workers "therapy." Yeah, sounds like a helpful way to recover. Do yourself or a loved one struggling a favor and look elsewhere for a program.

Dr. Guarda is by far the best psychiatrist I have ever worked with. She is tough, but that is needed for anyone who is trying to recover from an eating disorder! She is smart, she works tirelessly for her patients, and she tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. The other reviews are right about some parts of the program: the food sucks, there is no individual therapy, and it is strict. But IT WORKS. The comments about Dr. Guarda are simply wrong, and are unfortunately probably from patients who are still very ill. I would send any loved one or close friend with an eating disorder to her- she knows how to beat eating disorders.

Stunningly cold and insensitive psychiatrist. Her eating disorders program is run like an old fashioned psych ward where patients are treated as inferior people due to their struggles. In Dr. Guarda's eyes, everything is chalked up to "your eating disorder" and nothing you can say will ever be taken seriously. She expects patients to demonstrate flexibility to overcome eating disorders, but she and her program are incredibly inflexible. She cannot tell the difference between low motivation to recover and a lack of insight/judgment. It is alarming that someone with such little empathy or compassion became a psychiatrist, let alone is running an eating disorders program. She may be knowledgable about the medical complications of eating disorders but has no concern for the emotional side to eating disorders. I would never recommend her or her program to anyone, unless the only thing you are looking to gain from the program is a lot of weight.

Insensitive and condescending. This doctor laughed off my concerns when I was in a vulnerable state and I would never wish that treatment on anyone.

Dr. Guarda was not only insensitive and not at all receptive to patient needs, she also was irresponsible in pushing me to be a part of her clinical trial rather than discussing what medications would be appropriate and my medical history. She even pressured the therapist I worked with to talk me into a trial based only on the fact that I would be a good subject and not that it might be helpful. The worst medical practitioner experience I have ever had and someone I would never recommend.

She is the head of the Eating Disorder Program (inpatient & outpatient) at John's Hopkins. The program, under her direction, is one of the best in the country. Although it takes MONTHS at times to get an appointment with her, it is well worth the wait!